Sports in general has, in recent times, become a popular spectator attraction. In particular, baseball has become increasingly popular with each passing year. Therefore, more and more people see baseball games each year than the year before.
Unfortunately, however, this increased popularity is not always sustained for each team for an entire season, or in some cases, for an entire game. This is especially so if a team is out of contention for a championship, or is going through a particularly disappointing season. There may be a flagging of fan interest in such teams in such cases.
It is also to be noted that many baseball fans are accompanied to a game by someone who is not as interested in the game as they are, and may become bored during a game.
Recognizing this, many teams, and baseball teams in particular, often stage various promotional campaigns, and activities during the season and during a game. One common example of such promotional activity is the so-called "lucky fan number" printed in a program and identified by an announcer at the game during its later stages. The person having a program with the "lucky" number wins a prize, such as tickets to an upcoming game or the like. Other promotions include various door prizes, participation prizes and the like.
While most of these promotional ideas have been somewhat successful, they have fallen short of establishing and maintaining continued fan interest in a game while, at the same time, serving to increase fan knowledge of the game. Thus, for example, a young child attending his first game may not understand what a home run is and thus may not fully appreciate the occurrence of such an event and may not know enough to root for his team to hit a home run. This lack of knowledge may translate into boredom. Such a fan may be interested in a "lucky" number, but such occurrence is quite short lived and cannot maintain interest throughout the game. Certainly "lucky numbers" do little, if anything, to increase fan knowledge of the game, its rules and its nuances.
These promotional campaigns also suffer from the drawback of being quite limited in use. That is, each promotion is not amenable for use in a wide variety of situations such as use for a single game, a home stand, a month of games or even a full season of games. Thus, the rules of such games must be kept within the bounds of a quick learn and a quick use as the game probably will not be repeated. It is known that a complicated game often attracts fans and a following of its own who discuss the nuances and occurrences of that game itself. Thus, under the right set of circumstances, some fans attending a baseball game could support the baseball team while being primarily interested in the promotional game. However, at the present time, there is no such game available.
Therefore, there is need for a game which not only promotes interest in the game of baseball, but which also entertains fans for a sustained period of time while also teaching them about the game while also being adaptable to a wide variety of uses and fans in, and of, itself. A knowledgeable fan is generally the type of fan who will return to games and will support the team. Most of the common promotional games played at baseball games do not fully serve to achieve the dual end of establishing and maintaining fan interest as well as teaching fans about the game.